Bitcoin has struggled this year, plunging by more than 50% since hitting an all-time high in October as a hugh crypto “Ponzi scheme” teeters on the verge of complete collapse.
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The bitcoin price has failed to trade inline with high-growth technology stocks, falling alongside gold as traders brace for a bitcoin price nightmare.
Now, as Elon Musk’s SpaceX is seen to be quietly plotting a major bitcoin game-changer, one closely-watched bitcoin and crypto analyst has predicted a tiny cryptocurrency could be about to rocket 50-fold, creating “generational wealth.”
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Bitcoin has struggled over the last year, while some smaller cryptocurrencies have rocketed higher.
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“The time for decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols to capture a large part of the digital assets value chain has arrived,” Geoff Kendrick, head of bitcoin and crypto research at Standard Chartered, said in an emailed note. “This is where generational wealth will be created next.”
Aave, the largest lending protocol where users deposit cryptocurrencies to earn yield and allow others to borrow against collateral, currently has $12.4 billion worth of cryptocurrencies “locked” on its platform, down from an all-time high of $75 billion late last year.
“In traditional finance (TradFi) terms, Aave is best described as an on-chain bank that runs without employees, downtime or discretionary decision-making,” Kendrick said.
“Despite recent setbacks, we are bullish on the outlook for Aave, the largest decentralised finance (DeFi) lending protocol,” he added, referring to a massive exploit on the Aave-Kelp decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) bridge in April that saw almost $300 million of unbacked cryptocurrencies being created and drained from the platform.
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The aave price could be headed higher, possibly climbing faster than the bitcoin price in coming years.
Forbes Digital Assets
The hack spooked many DeFi investors, with one widely-followed pseudonymous trader warning that the hack revealed “the fragility of the entire system.”
Aave’s similarly named cryptocurrency, aave, is currently trading well below the all-time high it reached in 2021 at the peak of the Covid-era cryptocurrency boom. However, Kendrick has predicted aave will rocket in coming years as the protocol rides a surge of interest in DeFi lending.
“We initiate coverage of aave with an end-2030 price forecast of $3,500 for aave to U.S. dollars, a 50x increase from today’s $70 level,” Kendrick wrote. “This would see aave outperform both ethereum and bitcoin through end-2030.”
Kendrick has predicted the bitcoin price will return to $100,000 before the end of 2026, while he thinks ethereum will reclaim $4,000.